When a poker game is difficult to name, you can bet that it's also difficult to play.

Deuce-to-Seven Lowball of the no-limit variety.

The rules are strange, and the goal of the game — which is to secure the worst possible hand imaginable — is foreign to even experienced poker players.

It's a draw poker game with players holding the option to discard or stand pat over three rounds of betting action. You may turn in all five of your dealt cards for new ones and still be in the hand.

Aces always are a high card, and the best hand in the game is a flush-free 7-5-4-3-2. There are zero community cards to share, and you can bet it all in any round.

The World Series of Poker offers a variety of tournament offerings, but the lowball events produce some of the most difficult fields in the game. It attracts the serious bracelet chasers, but scares off the throngs of Hold 'Em specialists.

“It's the toughest game in all of poker,” said Larry Wright, winner of last week's $1,500 buy-in lowball event. “There's little information out there about the game. The only thing to use is the habits of the players. You learn which players do certain things in key situations and go with your gut.”

With 19 players remaining in last week's $1,500 event, 18 won either a WSOP or World Poker Tour championship. Eric Seidel, who Wright eliminated in 13th place, is poker's all-time tournament money winner (nearly $17 million).

A mixed-game specialist, Wright was an unlikely champion, but he had a secret weapon working in his favor — age and experience. He picked up lowball in the 1970s and has kept it in the rotation of the late-night South Texas social games he frequents.

Poker is now dominated by the young, implementing a brash, full-throttle attack style. If they know lowball, they typically don't know it well because the game is so rarely offered.

“The younger kids, they laugh at the older guys and try to run over them,” Wright said.

With a final table that included established champions such as Erick Lindgren, Michael Mizrachi and Brandon Cantu, there was no shortage of aggression.

Wright's strategy was to wait in the weeds and pick his spots.

“If I didn't have a hand or I was out of position, I pitched it,” Wright said. “It really busted their chops that I wasn't willing to get involved at times.”

His patience opened the door for timely bluffs. Wright pulled off a whopper late in the tournament with 7-7-7-2-2 for a key pot he estimates at $250,000.

“A full house is about the worst you can have, but I knew I had most of the low draws accounted for,” Wright said. “They couldn't have anything low enough to call me with.”

When the action got down to three-handed play vs. Cantu and Andrew Lichtenberger, Wright went on to steamroll towards his first WSOP bracelet after 37 years of trying.